Milk and B.S.

Milk and B.S.

Milk and B.S.

Earlier this week, Kate Sheppard
put up a list
of less-than-true things Republicans say about the EPA to make the case that its over-regulation is throttling freedom like Dustin Hoffman on one of the Irish burglers in
Straw Dogs
. One of the phony claims is that Obama's EPA has regulated spilled milk -- spilled milk! Alas:

At the heart of this claim is the EPA's Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure rule, which requires oil and gas companies to develop a plan for preventing spills. Because milk contains animal fat, an oil, milk has been included since the rules were first drafted in 1973. The rules were updated in January 2009 and took effect at the end of February, which appears to have prompted the new outrage on the right... but here's the thing: Contrary to how the agency's foes spun the update, the EPA's proposed new rules
explicitly proposed excluding
milk storage tanks from the spill prevention program. In April, the agency followed through with a
permanent exemption
.